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What I find funny is how it seems what we called "AI" shifted from what we actually mean when we speak of a human as "intelligent" to what we definitely do not

What I find funny is how it seems what we called "AI" shifted from what we actually mean when we speak of a human as "intelligent" to what we definitely do not consider a part of intelligence. Take the robots from Boston Dynamics as an example. We do not consider a human intelligent because they can distinguish a cat from a chair, or walk without tripping or do a backflip. But we would consider them intelligent if they were able to make creative use of their physical ability, based on the data they have, to solve a problem. But when we marvel at the "AI" in things like robots, my understanding is that the "AI" is mostly in the perception (going from raw sensor data to a labelled model of the world) and the actuation (going from an instruction as "move one meter forward" or "do a backflip" to an actual sequence of action of the actuators). But the actual "intelligence" (the decision to open the door in order to go fetch the peanut butter and bread in the other room, and bring it back to complete the task "make me a peanut butter sandwich") is mostly classic if-then logic, or given by a human operator. I see a similar pattern with things like ChatGPT: one might be impressed by the capacity of some students to learn textbooks by heart and parrot them perfectly, but those are not the students we call "intelligent". An intelligent student is one who might have forgotten the proof of a theorem or the exact definition of some term, but is able to creatively come to a correct and creative solution when presented a new problem (to which "parrot students" tend to fail miserably).

robofanatic 3y ago
> An intelligent student is one who might have forgotten the proof of a theorem or the exact definition of some term, but is able to creatively come to a correct and creative solution when presented a new problem brain needs to be able to retain some basic information to build upon.
__loam 3y ago
AI researchers joke that AI is just whatever a computer can't do.
Legend2440 3y ago
A huge portion of your brain is dedicated to perception and motor control tasks; these are not easy problems! Intelligence is more than just reason. Just walking across the room to pick up an object requires significant brainpower.
- aftoprokrustes 3y ago
  I did not say that they are easy problems, nor that seeing a robot do a backflip isn't impressive. It was just an amused observation that what we call "intelligent" in a computer changed based on whatever the current hot tech can do.
Unai 3y ago
Arguing what is and isn't AI is kinda futile, since there's no solid definition. I remember some old footage I once found on YouTube of a very primitive automated system for an airport control tower (I think it was). I don't remember the year, but probably the 70's or so. The guy was calling it AI. Then went into detail about what the software was doing, even showing the code (maybe it was just the interface). It literally was just a whole lot of if/else statements. Once we get used to ChatGPT and the like, it will either stop being called AI or we will start talking more broadly about "General artificial intelligence" for the next thing to come. Until recently I was on the side of not calling anything AI if it wasn't GAI, but honestly... who cares? Words are just tools to communicate ideas; if most people want to call the things we are doing today AI, that's ok, and it isn't even wrong. It isn't sentient, but it is arguably intelligent by some standards, and it is obviously artificial. If we understand each other, that's good enough.
- slowmovintarget 3y ago
  > but honestly... who cares? Words are just tools to communicate ideas That's the problem. If definitions constantly shift, then the signal-to-noise ration is much higher. It means that we no longer have an efficient way of conveying meaning. In engineering and science, terminology has to have very specific meanings, or the words become unusable for reasoning. The idea that "pffft... whatever... words... am-I-right?" seems to come from the angle of post-facto justification of using incorrect terminology, or as a mechanism for gas-lighting people into believing something that has little foundation in the real world. This is something advertisers and politicians are constantly striving to do. I really hate that this has leaked into technology discussions, but here we are.

robofanatic 3y ago

> An intelligent student is one who might have forgotten the proof of a theorem or the exact definition of some term, but is able to creatively come to a correct and creative solution when presented a new problem brain needs to be able to retain some basic information to build upon.

__loam 3y ago

AI researchers joke that AI is just whatever a computer can't do.

Legend2440 3y ago

A huge portion of your brain is dedicated to perception and motor control tasks; these are not easy problems! Intelligence is more than just reason. Just walking across the room to pick up an object requires significant brainpower.

aftoprokrustes 3y ago
I did not say that they are easy problems, nor that seeing a robot do a backflip isn't impressive. It was just an amused observation that what we call "intelligent" in a computer changed based on whatever the current hot tech can do.

Unai 3y ago

Arguing what is and isn't AI is kinda futile, since there's no solid definition. I remember some old footage I once found on YouTube of a very primitive automated system for an airport control tower (I think it was). I don't remember the year, but probably the 70's or so. The guy was calling it AI. Then went into detail about what the software was doing, even showing the code (maybe it was just the interface). It literally was just a whole lot of if/else statements. Once we get used to ChatGPT and the like, it will either stop being called AI or we will start talking more broadly about "General artificial intelligence" for the next thing to come. Until recently I was on the side of not calling anything AI if it wasn't GAI, but honestly... who cares? Words are just tools to communicate ideas; if most people want to call the things we are doing today AI, that's ok, and it isn't even wrong. It isn't sentient, but it is arguably intelligent by some standards, and it is obviously artificial. If we understand each other, that's good enough.

slowmovintarget 3y ago
> but honestly... who cares? Words are just tools to communicate ideas That's the problem. If definitions constantly shift, then the signal-to-noise ration is much higher. It means that we no longer have an efficient way of conveying meaning. In engineering and science, terminology has to have very specific meanings, or the words become unusable for reasoning. The idea that "pffft... whatever... words... am-I-right?" seems to come from the angle of post-facto justification of using incorrect terminology, or as a mechanism for gas-lighting people into believing something that has little foundation in the real world. This is something advertisers and politicians are constantly striving to do. I really hate that this has leaked into technology discussions, but here we are.